While “Solo: A Star Wars Story” gains all the notoriety since it fired its directors, and ‘Rise Of Skywalker,’ which parted ways with its filmmaker under reportedly similarly contentious circumstances, also receives attention for its early problems, Lucasfilm’s first troubled “Star Wars” movie was “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” Directed by Gareth Edwards, while Lucasfilm did a great job of mitigating the drama publicly, the reality was they brought on another filmmaker to essentially take over the project midway, to rewrite half the film, direct all the new scenes and supervise all of the post-production edit: Oscar-nominated “Michael Clayton” writer/director Tony Gilroy, also responsible for writing the essential films in the ‘Bourne’ franchise.
READ MORE: Tony Gilroy Finally Talks The “Terrible Troubled Mess” Of Star Wars’ ‘Rogue One’
Gilroy’s been extremely candid with the trouble Lucasfilm was in with “Rogue One” (“a terrible troubled mess”), but the company apparently liked what the filmmaker had to offer. Despite admitting he’s not at all a “Star Wars” guy, Gilroy has been re-recruited into the Lucasfilm fold to write the currency untitled Cassian Andor series for Disney+—a prequel spin-off of the ‘Rogue One’ movie he helped fix before it reached the screen.
READ MORE: Tony Gilroy, Not Christopher McQuarrie, Is Working On The ‘Rogue One’ Reshoots
While Stephen Schiff has already been named the showrunner of the series, Gilroy has been tapped to write the pilot for the series in addition to directing multiple episodes, reports Variety.
Described as a spy thriller, the untiled Cassian Andor show takes place before the events of “Rogue One” and presumably show how Andor (played by Diego Luna), rose up through the ranks of the Rebel Alliance as a trusted spy and soldier. Spoiler: Andor and all the rebel cast of “Rogue One” made the ultimate sacrifice and didn’t survive the movie.
READ MORE: ‘Star Wars’ Cassian Andor Live-Action Series, A ‘Rogue One’ Prequel, Announced By Disney
Alongside Luna as Andor, Alan Tudyk is set to reprise his role as K-2SO, the Rebel spy’s droid sidekick.
READ MORE: Alan Tudyk Reprising ‘Rogue One’ Role On ‘Cassian Andor’ Series
‘Rogue One’ was the first live-action “Star Wars” stand-alone film that existed outside of the original trilogies, although it was intrinsically woven into the story of “Star Wars: A New Hope.” The movie grossed over $ 1 billion worldwide. No premiere date has been set for the Cassian Andor series, but it’s expected to shoot next year for a 2021 release on Disney+.